From Cold War to Ostpolitik: Two Germanys in Search of Separate Identities

1976 ◽  
Vol 29 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wilhelm Bleek ◽  
Elizabeth Homer
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
Main Function ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Historical Process ◽  
Positive Identification ◽  
German Question ◽  
Negative Orientation

For over a quarter-entury, two separate states have existed in Germany. By fighting over “unity” and “unification,” the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic have in fact stabilized and legitimized their separate sociopolitical orders. This impact on the domestic politics of both states has been the main function of inter-German relations. Only recently has positive identification replaced negative orientation to the counter-state. The “German question” provides an example of “nation building” as a historical process of both the disintegration of old and the building up of new identities.

Western Integration vs. Reunification? Analyzing the Polls of the 1950s

2007 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-67 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anja Kruke
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
International Politics ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Social Research ◽  
German State ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
German Question ◽  
The 1950S

From the beginning of the West German state, a lot of public opinion polling was done on the German question. The findings have been scrutinized carefully from the 1950s onward, but polls have always been taken at face value, as a mirror of society. In this analysis, polls are treated rather as an observation technique of empirical social research that composes a certain image of society and its public opinion. The entanglement of domestic and international politics is analyzed with respect to the use of surveys that were done around the two topics of Western integration and reunification that pinpoint the “functional entanglement” of domestic and international politics. The net of polling questions spun around these two terms constituted a complex setting for political actors. During the 1950s, surveys probed and ranked the fears and anxieties that characterized West Germans and helped to construct a certain kind of atmosphere that can be described as “Cold War angst.” These findings were taken as the basis for dealing with the dilemma of Germany caught between reunification and Western integration. The data and interpretations were converted into “security” as the overarching frame for international and domestic politics by the conservative government that lasted until the early 1960s.

The Wisdom of a Socialist Defector

2020 ◽  
pp. 58-62
Author(s):  
Harry R. Targ
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Karl Marx ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The Cold War

Victor Grossman's A Socialist Defector: From Harvard to Karl-Marx-Allee is at once an exciting adventure story, an engaging autobiography of a radical opponent of U.S. imperialism, and a clear-headed assessment of the successes and failures of the German Democratic Republic (GDR, East Germany) at the onset of the Cold War until 1990, when its citizens voted to merge with the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG, West Germany). Most poignantly, Grossman compares the benefits workers gained in the GDR, the FRG, and even the United States during the Cold War.

Introduction: The Nordic Countries and the German Question after 1945

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 443-452
Author(s):  
KARL CHRISTIAN LAMMERS
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nordic Countries ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Political Situation ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
German States ◽  
German Question ◽  
The Cold War

This article introduces Scandinavia (or the Norden, as the region is sometimes called) and describes the position of the five Nordic countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden, during the Cold War. The Cold War created a new political situation in the Nordic region, and to some degree divided the Nordic countries between East and West and also on the German question. The introduction analyses how the Nordic countries dealt with Germany – that is with the two German states, the Federal Republic of Germany and the German Democratic Republic, and also describes the role of the Soviet Union and how it tried to influence the Nordic stance on the German question.

From the Search for Normality to the Search for Normality: German Historical Writing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stefan Berger
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Economic History ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Historical Writing ◽  
History Writing ◽  
East German ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Socialist Unity

This chapter demonstrates the overwhelming dominance of a Marxist, Soviet-inspired agenda, and the supremacy of social and especially economic history. During the Cold War, only the historians in the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) followed the Western path. Their counterparts in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) adhered to the Marxist-Leninist framework of history-writing prescribed by the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED). The divided world of the Cold War ensured that history-writing in the FRG and GDR became highly polarized. Anti-communism remained the underlying rationale of much historical writing in the FRG during the 1950s, and anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism comprised the ideological backbone of the GDR’s historical profession. Ultimately, the Cold War was crucial in incorporating West and East German historians into different transnational networks. After 1945, the two Germanies were attempting to regain some kind of national as well as historiographical ‘normality’ following major political and historiographical caesuras.

scholarly journals The Opening Phase of the Struggle for Germany

Slavic Review ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 38 (3) ◽  
pp. 473-480
Author(s):  
Robert M. Slusser
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
International Relations ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
The United States ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Major Powers ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Opening Phase

Ever since the Berlin blockade of 1948 the attention of historians of modern and recent international relations has been engaged by the problem of how Germany and its capital, Berlin, came to be divided, first among the major powers of the anti-Hitler Grand Alliance—Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and France—and then, in 1949, into two rival states, the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany. This problem lies at the heart of the much-debated question regarding the origins of the Cold War. This review article makes no pretense at being a comprehensive report on the literature of the German problem. My aim is, rather, to call attention to some recent contributions to the literature and place them in context.

South Africa, Apartheid and the Olympic Games

STADION ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 116-137
Author(s):  
Jan Hangebrauck
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Olympic Games ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
Sporting Event ◽  
Olympic Movement ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
First Time ◽  
The Olympic Games

South Africa was part of the Olympic Movement for more than two decades after apartheid had been officially introduced in 1948. In 1964 South Africa was excluded from the sporting event for the first time, and in 1970 it was formally expelled from the Olympic Movement. It had to wait until 1992 for its return when South Africa participated in the Olympic Games in Barcelona and won two medals. In the first part, this article describes South Africa’s development to exclusion and then back to its return by examining reasons for the late expulsion from, and re-entry to, the Olympic family. The next part looks at reactions of the governments and national sports federations (NFs) of Great Britain, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) and the German Democratic Republic (GDR) to South Africa’s exclusion and its return against the backdrop of the Cold War. This paper further analyses the general attitudes of those actors towards apartheid (in sports). The conclusion points out the implications of South Africa’s sporting isolation and additional research gaps.

scholarly journals Lizenz- und Gestattungsproduktion westdeutscher Unternehmen in der ČSSR und der DDR

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (2) ◽  
pp. 467-487
Author(s):  
Pavel Szobi
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Federal Republic ◽  
German Democratic Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
The West ◽  
Economic Relations ◽  
Institutional Conditions ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Business Relations

Abstract The article deals with economic relations between the Federal Republic of Germany, German Democratic Republic and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War. Using the example of licensed production, its aim is to illustrate that in spite of ideological boundaries, business relations between West and East flourished in the period of the 1970s and 1980s. The author characterizes institutional conditions for this cooperation, names individual cooperation attempts, and uses the example of the well-known German brand Nivea as a symbol of the West and an example of a successful cooperation. The article reveals the intensive activities of West German companies and their investments in the GDR and Czechoslovakia long before 1989 and shows the potential of analyzing the German-German and the European transformation after 1989 more under the perspective of continuities and discontinuities.

Glücksfall Bundesrepublik: New Germany and the 1960s

2008 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
KARL CHRISTIAN LAMMERS
Keyword(s):  
Federal Republic ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
German History ◽  
Federal Republic Of Germany ◽  
German State ◽  
German States ◽  
German Question ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Political Economic

The downfall and disappearance of the German Democratic Republic, the GDR, and the unification in 1990 of the two German states into the Federal Republic of Germany, the FRG, marked the end of an era. Forty years of divided and non-simultaneous German history had been brought to an end, and the national or German question had at last been solved. Since 1990 German history has continued as the history of the Federal Republic. From this perspective 1990 marked not an absolute end, but the continuity of the Federal Republic and to some degree even the triumph of the political, economic and social system of the FRG, as the inhabitants of the socialist GDR, when they had the opportunity, voted for joining the successful and wealthy West German state. The end of divided history, however, has had another consequence. Even if the era of the GDR, because of the very favourable archive situation, attracted great attention among historians, the focus of historical research has turned more and more to the history of the Federal Republic in order to analyse and explain why the FRG ended as a success, while the socialist GDR failed in its ambitions and aspirations as an alternative Germany. History demonstrated that the GDR was no German option, although for some time it was a German reality.

Studying National Commemoration and Political Celebrations in Africa: The Online Archive African Independence Days

2020 ◽  
Vol 2019 ◽  
pp. vii-xxviii
Author(s):  
Marie-Christin Gabriel ◽  
Carola Lentz
Keyword(s):  
Burkina Faso ◽  
Comparative Research ◽  
Democratic Republic ◽  
Nation Building ◽  
African Countries ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Online Archive ◽  
Republic Of The Congo ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Many

AbstractThe Department of Anthropology and African Studies (ifeas) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz hosts a comprehensive archive on African Independence Day celebrations. Created in 2010, the archive is one of the outcomes of a large comparative research project on African national days directed by Carola Lentz. It offers unique insights into practices of as well as debates on national commemoration and political celebrations in Africa. The archive holds more than 28,000 images, including photographs, newspaper articles, documents, and objects from twelve African countries: Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Côte d'Ivoire, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Gabon, Ghana, Madagascar, Mali, Namibia, Nigeria, and Tanzania. It primarily consists of an online photo and newspaper archive (https://bildarchiv.uni-mainz.de/AUJ/; https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/departmental-archives/online-archive-african-independence-days/); some of the material is also stored in the physical archive on African Independence Days at ifeas as well as in the department's ethnographic collection (https://www.blogs.uni-mainz.de/fb07-ifeas-eng/ethnographic-collection/). Most of the material concerns recent celebrations, but the collection has been complemented by some documentation of earlier festivities. Archives hold many stories while they also have a story to tell in their own right. This article discusses both aspects. It first traces the history of the Online Archive African Independence Days at ifeas. It then provides an overview of the different categories of material stored in the archive and tells a few of the many stories that the photos, texts and objects contain. We hope to demonstrate that the archive holds a wealth of sources that can be mined for studies on national commemoration and political celebrations in Africa, and, more generally, on practices and processes of nation-building and state-making.

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